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Critical Appraisal
King Henry Act Scene 1 (Once more unto the breach)
Once more unto the breach is a famous speech whereby Henry remarkably revives a legion of sick and tired troops to go into battle one last time. This speech gives great insight into Henry’s character and determination as he uses all of his oratorical skills to rally his troops. This includes his change in tone, his intention, feelings and sense as well as other literary techniques such as extended metaphor, imagery, rhythm and juxtaposition.
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King Henry gives this speech at Hafleur where he has been trying to take the town by siege. Battle after battle he fails to break their defences while his troops become waker and weaker. Winter is approaching, his men are loosing hope and it seems increasingly less likely they will ever be able to take the town. As the chances of success grow dim, King Henry gathers the troops and pleads to their nobility, honour, pride and friendship to go into battle ‘once more’.
It is the characteristic of a charismatic speaker that they make the listener feel very important, Henry certainly achieves this in this speech in making it very personal, increasing trust and faith. The first technique used to establish the sense of the speech is to ‘familiarise’ himself with the others. Almost straight away, he gains their trust and admiration by raising them up to his level and being sincere with them, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more” This is crucial in gaining their admiration so the rest of the aspects of the speech are much more emotive. He uses this technique extensively throughout the play and in this speech when he uses the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘us’ which groups him together with them, increasing comradery, trust and faith. The sense of this passage is established further as Henry, after gaining their trust, begins to become very emotive in lifting the troops. He lifts his tone to gain their interest, in juxtaposing peace and war, he spurs them on, encouraging them to be fierce and strong and ‘imitate the action of the tiger’. The sense of the speech is clarified further in the climatic building into a final burst of emotion and pride. Using personal relations such as fathers and mothers Henry motivates the troops into battle by giving them something to fight for, for freedom, for their fathers who had before fought and for their mothers. There is a true sense of comradery and friendship brought out by Henry that greatly motivates and spurs on his men. By appealing to their honour, pride, friendship and nobility he has sent an arousing wake up call to the troops.
It is clear that the intentions of Harry are to lift the troops into one last battle; he is sincere in asking for just one more advance on the enemy. He uses his great orator skills of rhetoric, metaphor, simile, alliteration and imagery to achieve this. One such example of this is when he uses alliteration and imagery to ready the troops into battle, “But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of a tiger” Using these two techniques he has enhanced the motives of the speech by making it more uplifting and stronger. This use of techniques to strengthen and enhance the intention is used throughout the speech; another example is of imagery and juxtaposition where he uses peace and war to elude fair nature and rage to weakness and strength. “In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as a modest stillness and humility but when the blast of war blows in our ears… disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage” this tell the troops to rise up in this time of war, you may no longer stay fair and modest but you must break out into strength and rage. This technique is brilliantly used to strengthen Henry’s intent to motivate the troops to strength and glory.
It is the intent of Shakespeare to use this speech to bring out some personality traits of Henry and to establish his change into manhood, where as prince Hal he was behind the clouds but now it can be seen that he has come out and is blinding everyone with his brilliance. Similarly to the above Henry is shown to be a great orator and successful in lifting his troops who are almost beyond any point of repair. Henry’s use of emotive language enhances his speech, as one can imagine on stage, he is gradually building up to the final line, of hope, glory and livelihood when he climaxes to, “And upon this charge cry, ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George.’” The building up to this line is very intense, with emotive diction leading up to a final cry of pride, hope and honour. After this uplifting speech the troops are full of life, hope and pride, they are ready for action and have gone from tired and worn out soldiers to charging warriors. This emphasises the intent of this speech as a way of reinforcing Henry’s orator skills.
Tone however, is Henry’s best weapon in motivating his troops into battle. He brilliantly uses tone to change the mood of the speech in different stages, creating a far greater impact on the men than an otherwise monotonous tone would have. The tone is continually changing, climaxing throughout the speech, enhancing the intensity and force of his ideas and words. He starts with a rhythmic and pleading tone, shown in the first line by, “once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”. It soon starts to change as he takes on a much more patriotic and uplifting tone with this he insights pride and nobility in the troops and gives them hope. The speech continues to climax in tone as Henry gradually raises his voice to be almost triumphant and exalted. Once he has won over the troops, he continues to get them fired up and ready for the big battle, his tone being a crucial part in getting them in the right frame of mind.
Henry also uses diction to express his ideas better to the troops. Choosing the right words, along with other techniques, he makes his men feel what he wants them to feel. He sets up the tone and his intentions well, but the feeling of the troops that he manipulates is what really gets them in the right mood. This is an important aspect of Henry’s speech as shown by the references to family, nobility, honour, brotherhood and pride that motivates the troops into battle. “On, On you noblest English” and “Dishonour not your mothers” both appeal to these senses of nobility, honour and pride. By using this technique, Henry has enhanced all other aspects of his speech by creating a trustful sentiment between the troops.
Overall, King Henry uses may techniques to spur on his troops into a final battle, appealing to their honourable, noble and manly sides. In doing so, he gains their trust and respect, as they gain his.
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